Demythologizing the Prostestant Reformation

The provocative title of this volume will no doubt arrest
the attention of many potential readers. Changing the title to the plural,
“myths” rather than the singular, “myth,” may indicate better the aim of the work.
This is to uncover common “myths” in Reformation scholarship regarding the
personae, theology, and practices of the Reformation. The primary value of these
essays is to present and evaluate up-to-date scholarship on a wide array of
Reformation related subjects, while challenging some common viewpoints. Most of
the time, its authors shed light on useful and neglected aspects of the Reformation,
while occasionally they go too far in their attempts to challenge commonly
accepted interpretations.

The bulk of the articles in this compilation usefully assess
some neglected areas of Reformation scholarship. The first two contributions
address whether the Protestant Reformation was primary German and the Catholic
Reformation was primarily Spanish, respectively. Both authors argue for more
nuanced origins of each movement. Other chapters treat topics such as the
Reformation in Poland, the limits of Luther’s apocalyptic self-identity, the
inability of modern scholarship to account for the spread of the Reformation
without using sixteenth-century categories of conversion, seventeenth-century
evaluations of the movement, church and state relations according to Musculus,
Calvin as a lover of order, incipient congregationalism in Pierre Viret,
Bullinger on the Reformed pastor, Lutheranism in Denmark, divine accommodation
in Calvin, and uses of Cranmer’s martyrdom in Hungary. The last two chapters
challenge the conception of Lutheranism as largely replacing images with the
Word. The former does so generally and the latter in relation to Danish
Lutheranism in particular. These essays help give readers a broader view of the
narrative of the Reformation.

Some of these essays go too far by way of overcorrection.
The most glaring example of this is John Balserak’s chapter entitled,
“Examining the Myth of Calvin as a Lover of Order.” Balserak’s basic contention
is that not only were John Calvin’s ideas subversive to social order, but that the
man himself was also (160). In relation to Calvin’s Reform efforts in France,
Balserak calls him, “the veritable Osama bin Laden of Sixteenth-century France”
(161). In spite of his defense of this comparison, his arguments read like a
prosecuting attorney of whom the court later learns had a personal vendetta
against the accused. By marshaling evidence such as plots against the French
crown via a lesser magistrate and statements such as Calvin asserting that,
“We, therefore, are able boldly to overthrow the whole of the papacy” (160,
163, 171), he labels Calvin as “disturber of the peace” (166). He concludes
that Calvin could not truly have loved peace and order, and that any country
today would have imprisoned him for his actions in the sixteenth century (172).
The element of truth in these assertions is that Calvin was not willing to
achieve peace and order at the expense of his convictions. However, while the
article is well-written, and could possibly win a conviction in a modern court
of law, it fails to examine Calvin’s thought and actions in their historical
context. For example, the citation about overthrowing the “whole of the papacy”
refers, in context, to overthrowing the doctrinal foundation of the papacy as
an institution through his exposition of Scripture. The essay comes across as
impugning motives to Calvin through circumstantial evidence rather than
engaging in sound scholarship with reference to his writings and in comparison
with his contemporaries. This is a rare fault of this otherwise excellent
volume.

As Daniel Timmerman notes in his contribution to this work,
“historical research thrives on myths and the pursuit to demythologize them”
(190). The Myth of the Reformation is
not, in most cases, an attempt to recast radically our picture of the
Protestant Reformation. Instead, it aims to bring the broader landscape of the
Reformation into clearer focus. Its essays vindicate the editor’s assertion
that one great myth of the Reformation is “that the Reformation era is a boring
period where not much is left to discover behind the traditional myths” (5). This
interesting volume admirably achieves this end.

This review will appear
in print in the January 2016 issue of Puritan Reformed Journal.